In Defense of 'The Last of Us: Part II'...
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
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The Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Set five years after The Last of Us (2013), the game focuses on two playable characters in a post-apocalyptic United States whose lives intertwine: Ellie, who sets out in revenge for a murder, and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. The game uses a third-person perspective; the player must fight human enemies and cannibalistic zombie-like creatures with firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth.
Development began in 2014, soon after the release of The Last of Us Remastered. Neil Druckmann returned as creative director, co-writing the story with Halley Gross. The themes of revenge and retribution were inspired by Druckmann's experiences growing up in Israel. Ashley Johnson reprises her role as Ellie, while Laura Bailey was cast as Abby. Their performances included the simultaneous recording of motion and voice. Gustavo Santaolalla returned to compose and perform the game's score. The developers pushed the technical capabilities of the PlayStation 4. Development reportedly included a crunch schedule of 12-hour workdays and cost around US$220 million, making it one of the most expensive video games to develop.
Following some delays, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Last of Us Part II was released for the PlayStation 4 on June 19, 2020; a remastered version is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 5 on January 19, 2024. It received critical acclaim for its gameplay, audio design, score, performances, characters, and visual fidelity, though its narrative and themes divided critics. It was the subject of review bombing on Metacritic, with some players criticizing the story and characters; discourse surrounding the game became adversarial. Part II is one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games and the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive, with over four million units sold in its release weekend, and over ten million by 2022. It won more than 320 Game of the Year awards and received multiple other accolades from awards shows and gaming publications.
~ Wikipedia
Intro: 0:00
Ad Read: 4:25
The Leaks: 5:20
Unwanted Sequel: 12:53
That One Guy Dies: 15:35
Misleading Marketing: 20:28
Pacing Problems: 24:16
Emotional Strain: 30:13
Conclusion 33:58
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Luke Stephen, you can not simply lure people to be convinced that easily to defend this absurd game to every gamers 😂😂😂
Bro let it go ITS A SHIT GAME...with bad, lazy and nonsensical writing ...and most of all the WOKENESS in it killed it.
Its a shame the game of the year awards were rigged because of political bias, otherwise would had
Final Fantasy 7 remake
or
Ghosts of Tsushima
won game of the year in 2020
@@tanelviil9149 Which part? Ellie being gay? She was gay back in 2013 in the DLC but hey, there wasn't "wokeness" in the conversation, so nobody gave a fuck.
Crying about wokeness is more obnoxious than the screaming lib meme.
They shouldn't have killed joel off
@@tanelviil9149 schizo
I think a Japanese reviewer (idk the source) had the best description about TLOU 2's narrative;
"It's about what's right and wrong, from the people who think that they're always right."
DAMN this is too accurate.💀💀💀😂😂😂
Ngl thats a great review.
I don't get it.
Ironically, fans always think they’re right.
Yeah, I saw that quote before and a lot of people seems to agree with it.
The game Luke is describing around 1:00 is basically Papers, Please and a lot of other indie games. There's a surprising amount of people who enjoy that kind of stuffs.
stuffs?
Yeah, I was just thinking "This is... he's describing Cart Life, and half a dozen other games."
'the franchise would be easier to be invested in and enjoy if this part was never made" is a statement you should never ever want to hear as a studio
And it’s incorrect
People only say this when they refuse to engage with the game on its level. Development started in 2014.
@@jordanwilliams1447It is correct. Objectively. Whether you like it or not, the game polarized the audience.
@@jordanwilliams1447 oh well you if you say so guess that shows me
@@GothamiteYT you're sounding dangerously close to "To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty" my dude
Honestly, the same death scene could have been received a million times better if they actually built up Abby to have you care about her BEFORE that scene.
I still wouldn't have liked it, but at least I would have felt torn on the situation. The way it's currently set up made me want to let Abby die at all encounters and actively cheer for her downfall. Like in the fight against Ellie.
Definitely agree. Yet the defenders of the game would tell you that it was the whole point, to make you uncomfortable. To those people I would say that just because it was intentional on the developers part, doesn't mean that it was a good idea to begin with.
yeah but the thing is you can’t get the player to care about abby unless she does something to affect the player in the first place (i.e killing joel). if we started off learning about abby it would’ve been really confusing just playing as a random new character we’ve never seen before
@@rushil9881 Don't suppose you've played Kingdom Hearts 2? In that game we play the first three hours as Roxas, a completely new character. Of course we all were confused about what was happening and why we weren't playing as Sora. But most of us learned to care about Roxas by the time we went back to playing as Sora. This is just one example. So basically it can be done.
I disagree, because I feel like what appeals to me about the game is that I'm presented with a character that I immediately hate from the start of the game, and am then made to walk in her shoes. I feel like that's something that people hate about the game, that she's not made more likable before the action, to make us feel torn when Joel's death happens. The strength of the game for me is that it puts me, as a gamer, in a position I don't want to be in. I completely understand why people have a negative reaction to that. But for myself it's a strength, because it's forcing me to confront something I don't want to process.
Kinda would've defeated the whole purpose of it then....
I was one the people who never saw the leaks, but knew Joel was going to die. There are many complaints I have with the game, however the most serious offender to me is the way the game consistently failed to make me care. I didn't find the need to make things darker a problem, rather the way I could never immerse myself because I could see the story's intention and constant attempt at manipulating me, and in my head I just thought how pretentious it all seemed as the game kept failing to make me feel anything but disappointment.
Well said, I felt the same way, not to mention the pacing of the game felt like a slog with its semi open world and long winded sections without cutscenes broke up what made the first game so visceral and satisfying bouncing between story and gameplay. So when you take away the part of the game that I truly cared about and was immersed in (the story) and give me more gameplay between, it’s ultimately not working. 😢
Same.
@@jjones1032 same
😂
Agreed, just felt so manipulative compared to the first game. How they use animals/pregnant ppl at multiple points comes to mind
For me, so many of this games issues come from its structure. In the first game everything flows so naturally and logically with their journey from east to west. Here, like you said characters are fast traveling all over the country and timelines are shifting constantly, which really kills a lot of momentum from chapter to chapter. The whole California epilogue really felt forced or out of place, and it was sad to see Ellie learn nothing from the previous events up to that point.
I think they did an excellent job of making you feel the loss of Joel, and his absence from the game is so noticeable and it makes you connect with Ellie that much more. The problem is if you’re gonna take out your beloved main character in the first hour of the game, whatever is replacing him (Abby) has to be that much more engaging instead. And for myself, there just wasn’t enough time spent making that genuine connection with her like they did with Ellie in the first game. None of her friends are particularly likable, and even if you disagree it doesn’t matter as they’re often killed almost immediately after getting any screen time.
Unfortunate that a game with so much potential and such fun gameplay and really cool set-pieces (the hospital boss comes to mind) ended up becoming such a disappointment. I feel like somewhere in there, there’s a 10/10 sequel if they had just fixed the structure/pacing and spent more time exploring Joel and Ellie’s relationship after he made that choice to save her.
Agree, I think that if the played out the story in chronological order it would have hit harder and would of given the player more time to get used to and like Abby!
Agreed, also can we talk about how bogus crying for Sarah’s death is considering her screen time is less? I feel what you felt with Abby’s friend except with Sarah, despite the game and everyone talking about how important she is. Felt like fans did most the work caring for Sarah.
Also how do you feel about the Joel death fake out cut? A piece in the story cutout for dlc. That’s one thing I disagree with, it did not flow natural and logically during that part.
I know this is about part 2 but part 1 has flaws that fans called perfect and as such Naughty Dog felt comfortable with making even bolder moves than cutting out story for you to pay for in a dlc.
this was perfectly said. everything is there to make a 10/10 game, just the minor changes that you noted were needed
@@youngnat Yeah I think when people get sad about Sarah it's more about what she represents for Joel rather than her as an actual character. Him having lost a daughter is such an important piece of who he is and why he is so reluctant to get attached to Ellie. Honestly my favorite scene in the first game is at the ranch when Ellie finally gets Joel to realize that she's his family now and he can put Sarah's death behind him. But I get what you mean, she is only in the game for 15 minutes lol
For me that section didn't feel out of place, as they're still moving toward their goal of finding the fireflies. I don't remember feeling like they specifically took out the part of the story that happens in Left Behind just to sell it as DLC. Like to me having to play more as Ellie and go get the medicine or whatever happens in the DLC would've harmed the pacing imo, but it's been a while since I first played it so I'm not sure.
Yeah no game is perfect. I think they definitely felt like they could do no wrong after the first game was so universally praised, so they really tried to do something crazy which I can respect. They just weren't quite able to put it all together
I agree. Maybe they desperately wanted to be as profound as the first game. Unfortunately they missed the mark
It's so heavy handed with its themes that you can't help but roll your eyes at a lot of the story beats as they unfold. Abby also has a father and they both save a zebra. She totally would have sacrificed herself if she was immune. Oh, her father figure also dies. She's a piece of shit in a brutal faction that is killing other people. Oh, she finds and saves a group of kids and ends up changing for the better. Lev is Abby's Ellie and Abby is Lev's Joel. Two sides of the same coin. We have come full circle from the first game. Which is why Abby's section is the strongest part of the game because it follows the rough template of the first game.
It just ends up feeling bloated and over stays its welcome. It suffers from the whole sequel has to be bigger than the first game thing. It messes with the pacing and has too many characters that it wants you to care about in a short amount of time because of the character switches.
If anything the HBO series will probably make better work of the story it wanted to tell. I feel like it would work better as a season of TV than it does as a video game.
Playing as Abby is more fun and she has better setpeices and she can kill things with one punch.
"Abby also has a father" is such a hilarious statement. What were you even trying to say with that
100% agree. The game is extremely unsubtle and heavy handed, which is fine. Not every story needs to be nuanced and complex. I just wish the fans would accept this about the TLOU2 instead of pretending it's some incredibly nuanced, deep piece of high art.
The last part of your essay here is a bit concerning. The first TLOU takes roughly 15-17 hours to complete, adding on an extra 2 hours for the left behind dlc. The first season on HBO sped through the story in 9, 1 hour episodes, 1 being the dlc’s story. So they basically told the story in half time. Oh, and 1 episode was totally dedicated to bill and franks story instead of Joel, Ellie and Bill. So if that’s any indication, I’d dare say that the show isn’t gonna do any justice for the second games story either. Btw, I loved the show. None of what I just said is necessarily complaining about the show. Just saying that it was an awfully fast season. My only real complaint is that I wish they’d done more episodes and given more time for the ending at the firefly hospital.
@@arielepouhe80 Both Abby and Ellie have daddy issues. Both share the same pain of that particular loss. Both are out there trying to find closure and it's disguised as revenge. Like, c'mon. The game isn't exactly subtle when it comes to all of that stuff. The game goes out of its way to tell you that not everything is as it seems and that the actions of characters you love have consequences. The us part of the last of us, you know? It wants to show you how fucked up things are from other perspectives of people trying to survive. It's why they gave the enemies names this time around. Trying to go the non black and white route. Which kind of fails. Especially in the Santa Barbara section.
My biggest gripe with the game was that they tried to retroactively make the fireflies the good guys favction to make Joels action seem as evil as possible, when in reality there are no good factions in this setting. The Fireflies of TLOU 1 are like the WLF in TLOU 2, just that one is the "science"-faction and the other is the "military"-faction. You have a few good people in it, but alot of them (especially at the top) are assholes.
First remember that the Fireflies had a deal with Joel and Tess to bring Ellie to Boston for weapons. A deal they never planned to abide by.
Second the first thing one of their "Soldiers" did after finding Joel trying to do CPR on Ellie is hitting him over the head with his rifle.
Third from the voice logs especially from Marleen we know, that they left her no choice but to accept that they kill Ellie for the brain probes. They didn´t care for either Ellie or any other of their former "patients". They also planned to kill Joel, and it was Marlene, that would have let him go, but we don´t know what orders the soldier had who was with Joel afterwards.
And from what we know from the Word of TLOU, most of it has turned to shit so even if they would have found the cure, there would have been no practical way to give it to all of what´s left of humanity.
But point 1 and 2 are enough to reason in universe for Joel to not trust them with Ellie, because they didn´t gave him any reason to.
On a meta level everything in the first game for me pointed to that they would have used the cure as a means to gain more power, like Immortan Joe in Fury Road used water to keep control over his territory.
But then again, I was probabely one of a few couple of people who were not really hyped after the anouncement of a sequel, because I found that TLOU never needed one because it had the perfect ending, like I don´t need a sequel to FFXVI.
And to be hones TLOU 2 didn´t change MY mind.
All they did was get people to look at the other side. That things aren't good and evil in real life
If u really think the game tried to say “Joel was evil” then you missed the point.
That's one thing I've seen a lot of people forget in regards to Joel killing the Fireflies in the hospital. They were escorting him away from the hospital to kill him instead of giving him the weapons as originally agreed.
TLOU Part II didn't paint Joel as the bad guy. That's nonsense. Joel has never been a good person, but he was a good father. The flashbacks throughout the game really fleshed out his character and that ending scene with him was fantastic and heartbreaking. He loved Ellie wholeheartedly and protected her without regrets! How delusional you have to be to not see that? Naughty Dog did Joel justice. End of story.
@@anthonyernst999 No they just wrote a bunch of bullshit
A lot of the media tends to follow similar narrative tropes and tend to air on the safe side, especially if it involves a popular IP that can make a ton of money. While it's not the most unique or groundbreaking story ever, I respect that naughty dog at least tried to take a swing at something like that.
I also really like that the game was emotionally intense. Whether I was angry or sad, the game at least made me feel something. The same cannot be said for most stories in video games, TV, movies, etc.
bruh the writing is like something out of an mtv movie just cause your standards are low doesnt make it worth of fucking game of the year
@@WetcameraincYeah no you're wrong
It’s funny there’s always the film debates between people who’s favorite films are Citizen Kane, Goodfellas, and any best picture nominated film and those who’s favorites are Star Wars, Jurassic park, James Cameron. I enjoy both sides equally and I think TLOU2 can kickstart a trend where we have games that reach levels like the first list (not to say the first list is inherently superior just because it’s "deeper")
I've always said if Naughty Dog wanted the player to sympathize with abby and see both sides of the story then we needed to play abby before we play the events with Joel. We needed to see her human side and then drop the bombshell of the relationship between the characters. The way Naughty Dog introduces Abby in an irredeemable moment then asks the player to see her side was was almost narratively impossible given the emotions the player would have already experienced
you talk about these players who think Joel is a good man? really???
even the first part ended with a selfish Joel who lied to Ellie
they did the right thing...you should hate Abby at first, I hated her and I wanna kill her...but than they showed me her pov and I understand her and even liked her.
It was just bad execution and I heard that's actually how it was initially planned was to play as Abby before Joel's death.
@@la_engineerhat are you 12? This is the most pathetic and "woe is me" argument of them all. Joel saved Ellie's life and risked his own doing so and y'all just wanna say "Joel Lied🥺😢." Only people with victim mentalities think this way. This is why I can't stand Ellie because she becomes just as bad if not far worse than Joel in the second game and ends up doing the same things she judged and mistreated Joel over. And can't forget the part where she breaks down and stops talking to Joel because he lied. Smh. 😂
The only reason she was even kicking was because of Joel and she had no right to complain.
You know what while I'm ranting Joel should've just let them kill Ellie then y'all would've been crying over that.💀💀💀
If the point was to hate Abby then we never should have played her if the point was to see her side of the story then we should have been introduced to her in a less incendiary manner. After that point in the story I didn’t care what her side was. 🤷♂️
Narrative wise, it’s not even like part 2 is super original in the sense where we focus on the antagonist for a major amount of time. I like to compare it to things like Captain America: Civil War with cap and tony, Revenge Of The Sith with Anakin and Obi Wan, or even MGS where you even play as the villain. Stories can work where you understand the antagonists perspective, but it needs to be earned. I feel like if Part 2’s narrative was just tweaked slightly and rearranged , it could have gone from polarizing to maybe even universally loved.
Honestly just rearrange some of the chapters or even making two different campaigns like how Resident Evil games did before would have made the narrative way better imo.
I think the reception would have been much better if the game started out on that flashback of Abby looking for her dad at that zoo. The game doesn’t give you enough time to like Abby as a character before she does the most shocking and polarizing thing possible.
The problem is that the narrative is separated as if it were two separate campaigns, punctuated just before the finale. It's as if you have Obi-wan's storyline, so that just before he lands on Mustafar, there's a cut and Anakin's storyline.
Or like if Tony had the first half of the movie and then Cap the second half.
Well, and somehow I've never heard that Abby's half is particularly praised.
Why is ROS there? The story fails because Anakin actions there are utterly moronic. Like have you actually watched it?
@@rali5644I think the better question is have YOU watched ROTS? Clearly you haven't if you can't see why a former SLAVE who became a Jedi only to free his mother, and then have the Jedi FAIL to free her leading to her death, and THEN have them fail to do the same for his wife, might just hold a bit of a grudge against them. Lmao
I love Part 2. Honestly, there are some pacing issues but it's still an amazing game.
I’m right with you ! And the gameplay is more fun. You get a lot more stealth options to play with and the dodging mechanic was an excellent addition. Also appreciated the expansion of exploration and the verticality of the levels
@MR.__G I love that you can play completely differently with each playthrough. Stealth through and avoid as much as you can, be John Wick and kill all with no Stealth, be up close and personal, set up traps and lure people, the list goes on. My favourite is John Wicking my way through with a bit of stealth, hiding under trucks and taking out ankles before finishing them off 😄
yara and lev are incredible characters, genuinely. i loved every second of them on screen and wanted to learn so much more
They are BY FAR the most realistic characters in a gaming history, Imagine the world collapses, everyone fighting for resources, zombies, cannibals, etc and some USA kids made a tragedy about being missgendered and run away from their parents 😅
@@et2k166 that was NOT what happened??
Not by a mile. want to see complexity in characters check out the mass effect series. look at Jin Sakai and his uncle shimura from GOT. So many more well written characters in gaming then a little Ellie knockoff
The gameplay, voice acting, graphics etc are great, but the story and characters are bad.
1. Abby conveniently finding Joel.
2. Joel standing in the middle of a room of armed strangers, putting himself in the most vulnerable position possible. He may have softened a little, but he’s not dumb, and still regularly goes out into danger.
3. Abby’s crew letting Tommy and Ellie live despite the fact one is Joel’s brother, and the other clearly cares a lot about him and threatened you all.
4. Abby’s crew wearing their WLF patches so they can be identified.
5. Maria picking Ellie and Dina, two inexperienced teenagers to travel across the country to get Tommy, rather than older and more experienced people. Plus Ellie is the most emotionally compromised person in Jackson, making Maria’s decision even more idiotic.
6. Ellie conveniently finding pictures, including names, of all the people she’s looking for.
7. Mel conveniently hiding her belly when Ellie finds her, not to mention neither she or Owen tell Ellie that she’s pregnant when that’s something I think any parent or sane person would do.
8. Abby finding Ellie’s map she conveniently drops that leads Abby right to her.
The story was full of moronic situations, and I personally didn’t like like any of the characters except Owen. And a final note, I don’t wanna play as a killer of a beloved character, let alone for nearly half the game.
@chandllerburse737 What I mean is when arriving in Jackson, she just runs into Joel, without having to do any work to find him. Regardless of if a more intelligent and sensible outcome was planned, the fact is the one the game has is bad.
That’s a negative for those games too, but at least in their case the Uncharted series is a lighthearted Indiana Jones style game. TLOU on the other hand is meant to be a very serious and realistic series. If the choices and situations can’t be taken seriously, why should the players.
@chandllerburse737 You’re not helping TLOU2 at all.
1. All stories have conveniences to a certain degree. Abby knows the town Joel lives in, they’re on the outskirts where Joel and Tommy are part of regular patrols and they bump into each other at the ski lodge. It’s established in a flashback later on that Joel and Tommy regularly go to said ski lodge on their patrols. It is a convenience, but it’s a perfectly acceptable one.
2. Tommy told Abby their names in the ski lodge before Abby suggests going to the house where her crew is held up. Going there was by far their best option for survival considering the circumstances. Seeing as they had saved her and she had helped them fight off numerous waves of infected, there’s no reason for them to suspect her real motives. Even if he was more cautious, it wouldn’t matter anyway because as mentioned before, Abby already knew who he was.
3. Well some of the crew wanted to kill them, but Abby and Owen decided not to and they were in charge. They said they felt killing them would make them as bad as Joel, which I get. Also, If you were part of a massive militia group I don’t see why you would worry about being hunted down by two people. If they were aware how dangerous they are, maybe that would have been different.
4. See above.
5. Maria didn’t pick them, she just knew that she wasn’t going to stop them. They maybe teenagers but they’ve demonstrated that they’re capable of handling themselves considering they can go on patrols. These aren’t teenagers who live in Beverly Hills, they’ve been living their whole lives in a tough, post-apocalyptic world.
6. I’ll give you that, but I don’t think it’s a story wrecking moment.
7. I think in a moment that hectic and emotionally charged it’s perfectly understandable that they’re more focussed on taking out Ellie than focussing on the pregnancy. Also Mel didn’t intentionally hide it from Ellie, she just had her coat done up because it was cold and pissing with rain.
8. Pretty convenient granted, but not egregiously so imo.
@chandllerburse737 And your comments get more and more ridiculous.
@@somanytakennames Doesn’t change the fact the timing is too perfect, with the guy she’s looking for just landing on her lap.
He’s got decades of survival experience, he wouldn’t stand in the middle of the room, leaving him extremely vulnerable. And actually if Joel was cautious, which realistically he would of been, he wouldn’t of been blindsided by Abby and could of reacted. But Neil had to butcher his character to get his revenge story going.
Except they’re already as bad as Joel, if not worse. They are part of the WLF which aren’t a nice group, that have killed innocents. They also traveled across the country and brutally tortured a man to death. Most of them, and Abby definitely considering that cutscene, would know of the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and therefore would understand why he did what he did, even if they disagree with it. Abby and Owen already talk about Jackson and how they are equipped and have a lot of people. And considering who those two people are, especially Tommy, they should fully expect that it wouldn’t be just two people, when those people belong to a well organised group living in a massive city.
Nope, their actions and decisions are hypocritical and moronic.
She is the leader, she is more than capable of containing Ellie like Tommy asked her to do. Instead she just lets her go, the most emotionally compromised person in the town. What makes her think Ellie of all people would find Tommy, and then say “ok now let’s go back home” rather than join him on the revenge mission. It’s ridiculous. Sending better and more experienced men who aren’t messed up emotionally is the sensible choice.
Course not, but it doesn’t do the story any favors when crucial information like that just falls into your hands so easily.
How is it? She has a gun pointing at them. Trying to take her on instead of saying something that could save your life or even give her pause for you to act, is stupid. It’s precisely why they both died. And it’s only raining in some parts of their location, as where they are standing it’s perfectly dry.
No, but once again it’s all too neatly wrapped in a bow. If she found her through tracking, or making intelligent deductions it could make the whole thing fine.
The guy really sounds like Bob Odenkirk, I was shocked how his voice sound almost like Saul :)
About the AI shouting random names upon killing an irrevelant grunt npc that not only do you know nothing about and never will but it was, by design, placed there to either die or give you something to do. The point is "you should care and feel X because it had a name" and the answer is no, not even close
This is one of the most blatant, cheapest ways used by the game to emotionally manipulate the player. If you fell for it, you fell for an appeal to emotion argument, commonly used in politics and known as a fallacy for a reason. Hence why no one has come close, because you want to stay away from such tactics
Another RUclipsr NakedJakey I think, actually pointed that out, that regardless of how messed up, brutal or needlesly violent you are in the combat, it is never reflected in the actual story.
It's called Ludonarrative Dissonance, where the Gameplay doesn't fit with the story being told, much like Laura Croft in the 2013 Tomb Raider Reboot, having a viceral reaction to killing your first deer, but not when you do it again and if I recall, not even when you kill your first human.
@chandllerburse737 seriously? Don't think I've ever heard that being an issue, but I could have just missed it.
@chandllerburse737 The point still stands, it´s meant to make the npcs feel real, they care someone they knew died. Which at the same time is meant to have an effect on the player, which is also determined by what the game is thematically trying to do, hence its inclusion.
In the Arkham Games, the approach is drastically different, the game is trying to communicate how intimidating Batman can be, especially to criminals. And every time the npcs nervously say they got someone down the real aim is not to make them feel more "real" so you can make some narrative up in your head about how sad it is that I just killed someone they "knew" and how they "cared", just because it had a name. Is to make you feel more threatening as Batman.
@chandllerburse737 And here I thought we could have a meaningful discussion about execution for design, thematic elements....Ehh, I´ll take the deflection I guess
@chandllerburse737 I don´t think misanthropy has anything to do with it. Any story is going to have thematic elements, intention and things that, by design, are there for you to pick up, because if that wasn´t the case, those elements wouldn´t be there in the first place. And we can, through observation, conclude what said story is trying to tell you, and what are the means said story is using.
The fact that somebody else shouts a random name adds nothing within the context of the narrative or the story, just a false feeling that they are more real, but you still have nothing to work with. It would be akin to watching a John Wick movie and, for each single random grunt in his way that gets killed, another random grunt shouts a name, only for this last grunt to be killed as fast as the previous one. But the movie is not trying to trick you into thinking "these were real people, real grunts that cared for eachother and died for nothing at the hands of a merciless killer" which is why it doesn´t happen.
And even if it did happen, and somehow the people began praising it by saying, "man, those grunts felt so real and immersive" the people behind the script and the story would probably think "Man, cannot believe they swallowed it, that was easy"
Another issue with the perspective shifts was the constant shifting between other times
I think my biggest issue with part 2 is that the first game although having great writing and characters you actually gave a shit about was built off a foundation based around the relationship between Ellie and Joel. The writers of two forgot that although the game would’ve been good nonetheless due to how well the writing was, what made it GREAT was these two characters and how the built off of each other and were directly a part of each others arcs. So when the second game came out, and we see them hating each other all of a sudden and then the main character of the first game getting brutally murdered by someone we are forced to play as for multiple hours AFTER the fact, people were rightfully pissed off.
It's not "rightfully" if I'm not the target of the product it's not the product's fault, because whoever is has understood everything very well, I don't go under Mario Kart games and say "they're things for children, what do I do with this dumb thing?" no I just don't play it and I understand that it has more value to other people, that's why this is a "non-criticism".
This industry is evolving along with the people who use it, it is stupid to give credit to these people who hate anything that is not made for them.
They didn't forget anything. That relationship had hard lies attached to it, and because of that, the consequences followed. Yall don't understand what good writing is if that's the excuse being attached to it. Joel was not a good person and he lied to Ellie after she confronted him about the truth. Everything that follows is a direct result of that. It's how real relationships work. Their relationship being good and happy is not a crutch meant to carry a franchise.
People can be mad, sure, but it was deserved. Anyone trying to say that's bad writing lacks a comprehensive understanding of what character motivations are and how consequences have repercussions.
I think Joel dying made sense but it’s the forcing the player to play as Abby that didn’t. Also the constant cycle of Ellie’s revenge felt like it dragged on too long
@@noahverstynen8091 this is because there is something more important behind revenge, but I understand that for some it is too difficult.
Correct. But that's how it should be. Cause and effect.
I hated Abby for what she did. Playing as her was hard. But as I saw things from her POV I started to realize she wasn't the bad guy and she did exactly what anyone else would do. If some super likeable guy killed your dad would you let him off the hook because he's super likeable? "My pleasure Joel, murder my family whenever you want". Or would you track him down and get revenge? This world is very much a revenge world and not a forgive and forget world.
The second game is mainly great because of the combat and attention to detail. It's a stunning feat. But it's also great because it shows you the world from different points of view. There is no good guy and no bad guy. There is cause and effect and that's it.
So by the end I was on Abby's side, even though I'm the first person who would have killed her dad to save ellie.
The issue with Joel's Death is not that Abbey killed him or even that he was tortured in it. It's the fact THERE IS NO WAY Joel would EVER have let down his guard and dropped his weapon when outnumbered by Abbey and her crew. The death does not feel earned; it instead feels like the only reason Joel dies is because the writers decided he needed to die.
There are any number of ways the death of Joel could have played out that would have made sense. Instead of choosing any of them, we get this garbage scene just to be shocked and provide the false narrative for the rest of the game.
Ironically, he got "fridged" as the feminist would call it when done to a female character.
Joel quite simply did not let his guard down. You could not be anymore wrong about that. For a start, Joel did very little wrong and everything you could argue he did wrong was in line with the better version of himself than the was trying to be. Tommy told Abby their names before they had any reason to suspect she had a group of heavily armed friends nearby. The only thing Joel and Tommy did wrong debatably was telling only Abby their names and rescuing her in the first place. They rescue her because they’re better people now and they tell her their names because she could’ve been a new member to Jackson, once saved. Apart from that Joel and Tommy did nothing else wrong and at every point try to either get away from the group or negotiate with them.
This doesn’t make any sense. Joel lived in Jackson for a number of years, and recruited many stray people and groups during that time, presumably without issue. He had literally no reason to believe that this group was looking for him specifically.
You guys make up a bunch of stuff about Joel in your head and then get mad.
Joel got melted down with years of living with a family and with familiar comforts. Coming from someone who was a hardened asshole, once you have a family, that shit softens you up.
Dunkey has a good point on this.
He said something like, Joel is not a psychopath you meet at the start of the game anymore, he grows to care for Ellie and in fact lets his guard down, in more ways than one.
Luke : “It is not okay when people spread rumors and lie about the game” Also Luke: “I understand why Naughty Dog putout misleading trailers it just makes me feel icky”
It's a blatant case of False Advertisement, and I have yet to be given a good reason why anyone should be "ok" or "cool" with.
@@chriswihuluthen you’re really not listening.
@@scruz6293 my hearing or lack thereof, is not an argument...
Please, do inform me why we should accept trailers lying to us, especially as Naughty Dog must have made two versions of the same cut scene and chose to show the one that wasn't in the game, in their "Story Trailer".
@@chriswihulu because it was additive to the experience of the game. Once I had context and saw why it was advertised the way it was i was completely sold. My expectations were gone and the game showed it was now capable of anything. The traditional story telling rules were out the window. And it was significantly better for it.
@@scruz6293 can you include that "context" cause it quite literally, just sound like you were shown a lie, found out it was a lie and wanted to see what else turned out to not be true.
If it's about the leaks, the best I can say is, it sucks that it happened, but that doesn't make it alright to pull that kind of stunt. Game trailers are given specific descriptions, as to indicate what parts of the game they show; sneak peak, first look, gameplay, story, etc.
That trailer in question, is the Story Trailer, as such, it is meant to showcase bits and pieces from the game's story. If they show scenes in that trailer, that doesn't appear in-game, in any way, then that isn't additive nor is meant to remove your expectations, it is false advertisement.
If it was meant to remove your expectations and break away from traditional story telling methods, why isn't the entire story different from what is shown in the promotional material? Why wasn't it just an Abby game, since we can now expect anything that we've been told, might turn out to be false?
No, they did this, specifically, to showcase Joel as if he was alive and part of the story, just so they could laugh in people's faces and say "lol, how dumb you are, for listening to leaks! Look, you can clearly see he isn't dead!"
If we apply your reasoning going forward, any trailer from Naughty Dog now or in the future, must have bold letters in them in every frame, saying; "any and all scenes in this trailer, may or may not have been made, purely as an 'additive to the experience' and must not be seen as an official representation of the game".
I don't really agree with the argument that the game is only bleak and miserable, there is actually a lot of lightness, beauty and hope scattered throughout. Granted, several of those moments come in flashbacks, but it's not exclusive to them, e.g. the early Seattle stuff with Dina or certain parts with Lev. The birthday flashback is possibly the most beautiful scene ever created in a video game and the final flashback, as bittersweet as it is, is also stunning.
All in all, the game is going to give you a lot conflicting emotions, if you're open to it. If that's not what you're looking for, fair enough, it's probably not going to be for you. But you know, that's okay, not everything has to be for everyone.
One criticism I do agree with is the pacing. There's no question the game drags in certain areas. How much of a negative that is, is going to be different for everyone. For me it doesn't actively harm the game, I don't love it any less because of it. But it's definitely there and I get why it's a much bigger issue for others.
its is bleak, flashbacks are exactly that, meaningless back padding to the bleak and miserable, that's their point as a palette cleanser but that's the issue
@@marcusclark1339 Those flashbacks are NOT meaningless lmfao. They give extremely important context to the narrative and at regular intervals so that the story slowly begins to unfold before you. For instance, the Joel & Ellie museum flashback is not, on its own, very impactful. What makes it impactful is that we already know Joel is gone, so we appreciate every tiny moment we have with him, even if it's just a memory. That flashback wouldn't carry the same emotional weight had we not experienced Joel's death prior.
@@TheOutsider69 The museum is important because its a direct lead in to their confrontation in the next flashback at the hotel. Ellie needed to see the firefly logo with LIARS underneath because it plants the seed we see blossom when Ellie gets Joel to tell her to truth after she goes through the hospital.
Flashbacks are overuse
Literally the ones of Abby are ok because we never know her
BUT ELLIE lmaoo
This game hits hard if you’re an Apocalypse Now fan. One of the best moments in gaming I’ve ever had was leaving the arcade bloater fight feeling EXHAUSTED from surviving Seattle (grounded mode).
As I drove my boat into the ocean it hit me Neil Druckman was referencing Apocalypse Now. It’s a movie based on the book, The Heart of Darkness that deals with the horrors of war, colonialism (cough cough* Scars I mean Seraphites) & how men deal with these things psychologically. Captain Willard, a vietnam soldier is sailing into the heart of darkness….deeper into the metaphorical & literal jungle of the mind. A place where no one wants to go.
When I riding those waves as Ellie, seeing the silhouette of the ferris wheel in front of the lightning as the weather became demented nearly sent me. I was like omfg Ellie is sailing into the heart of darkness. I could feel her frenzy build because I wanted Abbey gone just as much as she did. If I was a RUclipsr I would make a video on it breaking down the film & Part 2 because no one talks about it. My fav part about the film community is it invites a certain type of person. Someone who’s calm, reflective & willing to look inbetween the lines of art. My least fav part about the gaming community is it invites the opposite of that type of person. That’s why you see so many kids shit on this game because Joel dead me no likey Abby muscle bad. This game deserves the respect cinema gets.
If you got this far….go watch an Apocalypse Now breakdown video with the knowledge of the game in the back of your mind. Connect the dots & have your mind blown. Replay the game with that new perspective if you want. One of the best video games of all time. It’s up there with GTA4, Ocarina of Time, ICO etc.
THIS bravo
On the off chance of you haven't played Spec Ops The Line I'd recommend it.
@@CrazyxEnigma Love that game. Fun platinum
Apocalypse Now is a snooze fest. Literally fell asleep watching it
@@Diakoidris That’s valid. My wife can’t stay awake for Godfather to save her life. The thing about incredible art is it’ll always be there, ready to influence your life when you’re ready to let it in. I’ve had albums hit me in my 30’s that didn’t do anything in my teens
My opinion is that the game's story was bold in concept, but in execution was extremely poorly handled. Part of that is the rushed start of the game, the poor balance of tone and how more black and white Joel's actions were at the end of Part 1.
The start of the game being rushed is relative to a few things. Introducing new characters such as Jesse, Dina, Abby, Owen and co. Establishing and trying to really push Ellie and Dina's relationship, and the lead up to Joel's death was rushed and felt out of character. To give a side note, I recently replayed Part 1 and Joel throughout that game never really lost his edge unless he's around Ellie. So, Joel being all hunky-dory with Abby's crew, loosening his weapon from his hand just feels out of character, because there wasn't a sense of development up to that point of Joel losing his edge. And it's just moronic generally speaking in the apocalypse that you shouldn't be easily trustworthy with random people you meet.
Now the balance of tone is something rather fascinating considering the structure, pacing and overall the legnth of Part 2 conpared to Part 1. Part 1 was largely a dark game, for sure, but the scenes with the Giraffe, Joel and Tommy reuniting, and even just random moments of Ellie reading jokes from her joke book to Joel lighten things up. As a game, let alone a movie, with just nonstop misery would lead to it becoming a slog and just really boring and desensitizing. You need that balance to stay invested in these characters. To see them happy, laugh, but also cry and be angry makes the characters themsevles much more well rounded. Now, Part 2 does have these, but due to the abhorrent pacing and bizarre structure of the game, it makes those moments feel much more drowned out by the bleakness of it. And so it makes it a bit more difficult for some to gain an attachment to these characters throughout.
Now, this is certainly controversial for me to say, but Joel was 100% justified in stopping the Fireflies. Why? Well, keep track of the specific word they use when describing the cure. They use "vaccine" when scientifically vaccines are null to fungal infections. And even if it did work, how would they get it spread around the world, especially the US as the government views the Fireflies as a terrorist organization, so a scenario of the Fireflies having a potential cure would cause a war more than anything. And even if the world is cured, who's going to stop people from being as they were in the post-apocalypse? The world at this point, after so long, is lawless generally. So a form of governmental power regaining it's countries is almost inherently impossible to do so. So if anything, Joel doing what he did, changed very little in the grand scheme of things.
Part 2 is a game that wasn't needed and if anything weakens it's own IP narratively, and I sincerely hope that Season 2 of the HBO show drastically changes the story and that for the games, they never make a Part 3.
Very well put, I agree with all of this. Great concept but lacking execution sums up the story well.
"So, Joel being all hunky-dory with Abby's crew, loosening his weapon from his hand just feels out of character, because there wasn't a sense of development up to that point of Joel losing his edge,"
This is insanely false. You cant still think this after the end-game contexts. You especially get to see how Joel changed and softened up when you explore his house as Ellie, taking notes of his hobbies and projects and the photo of Ellie/Joel on the same table as the framed photo of Joel/Sarah. Joel not only saved Abby, he fought alongside her from the horde. Abby gives him a way out (Mansion) after He saved Her life. Plus, the crew from Seattle greet Tommy and Joel with a friendly demeanor. It's also shown that Jackson regularly gets traders passing through. Joel mentions this in the end-game cutscene.
Do people not pay attention to the events unfolding on screen?
"They use "vaccine" when scientifically vaccines are null to fungal infections. And even if it did work, how would they get it spread around the world, especially the US as the government views the Fireflies as a terrorist organization, so a scenario of the Fireflies having a potential cure would cause a war more than anything. And even if the world is cured, who's going to stop people from being as they were in the post-apocalypse?"
Fanfiction tier arguments that the game doesn't focus on because it isnt important. Ellie was going to die. If Ellie isnt worth saving, the world isn't worth saving.
Why is TLOU the only series where you hjave to remind people of basic plot events?
"To give a side note, I recently replayed Part 1 and Joel throughout that game never really lost his edge unless he's around Ellie. So, Joel being all hunky-dory with Abby's crew, loosening his weapon from his hand just feels out of character,"
I wonder what the difference is in Joel's charactert between Parts 1 and 2. You are so close.
The argument of Joel not losing his edge is a weird argument. They have been living in peace for a while. Trading with strangers and letting strangers in. When you live in a peaceful time and get more used to it, than obviously you get a bit more softer. BUT it was TOMMY who messed up and revealed their identity to Abby first. NOT Joel as many people who doesnt like TLOU2 claims it was Joel who messed up and casually revealed their identity. Joel cant just say: "Nope, Im not Joel. That guy is crazy who called me Joel."
Not interested in the remaster . I think just playing the game once, was more than enough. I’m curious to see how season two of the show is gonna turn out to be. Especially with Kaitlyn Dever, portraying Abby
Remaster*
Thanks thats what I meant
I think you actually need to play it multiple times to really grasp the story. I don’t believe it’s a good thing that multiple playthroughs are necessary, but that’s still the case.
Game was great. It’s the story that most were pissed about. We could understand Abby’s anger but still hated her for what she did. It’s like Naughty dog gave us a million dollars with the first game then with the second game they also gave us a million dollars but also gave us Aids. I can’t be the only one that tried to throw Abby off every cliff you walked by after she did what she did.
incrediblly well put. also yes re:Abby and clifs
aren't there compilations of people trying to kill Abby while playing as her, that was the case a few months after the game came out if I recall corectly?
@@chriswihulu not that I remember other than it wouldn’t let you.
@@baddreams123451 I mean, it let you, you just got sent back to the last save point. Same with Ellie killing Abby's dog, you have to do that in a Quick Time Event, go back to repeat the section all over again.
@@chriswihulu it’s been awhile since I played it. I thought the cliff stopped you. I’ll have to try it in the remaster next week.
My problem was never what happened but rather how it’s done. If you had two brain cells going into part 2 you knew Joel was going to die. Then he dies and I felt nothing, it just happened. That happens multiple times through out the story. Then there’s conveniences that would make CW show runners blush. There’s the 10 hour flashback right at the climax. The changed firefly context from vaguely terrorist cell freedom fighters to out right good guys that were definitely going to give everyone a fungal vaccine extracted by a veterinarian in a fallen hospital. Ellie seeing no nuance that she wasn’t asked about the surgery because she was unconscious. Joel being soft after decades of survival instinct driven living. Ellie being utterly un-like-able and unrecognizable from the first game. I mean I can go on and on. There’s the ending that would’ve maybe worked for a play or something but doesn’t fit the video game platform or the story told prior. Then all of us that genuinely thought the game was amateurly constructed were called all kinds of different bigots, that was a real spit in the face after already ruining something we were so into. There’s plenty of great sad ending, bleak, revenge tales out there and this ain’t one of em, which really hurts because TLOU is my favorite game of all time.
🤓
Some people think this game and it's characters are unpopular because they're stuck in their anti-SJW echo chamber. They are wrong.
What kills me about the Joel shit is that people aren't being honest about who Joel is/was. If you played the first game, it was implied he was out robbing and killing and setting "tourist" up for YEARS. Tommy got away from him because of how much of a savage he was. Adopting Ellie as his surrogate daughter doesn't absolve him from his sins.
That's a you problem
@@lukescrew1981 yeah….hence “my problem” being the first 2 words brainiac
Legitimately my only grievance with this game is the way Joel dies. It’s not even the fact that he dies, but how. It seemed so out of character, and contrived. Everything else, including the narrative framing and themes, is masterful.
What about the pacing of the story? Don't you consider it kinda weird that just as the conflict with Abby is heating up, we suddenly have to play as her for the next 8 hours before resuming that conflict? In a storyline that has barely anything to do with Ellie's and could've been it's own game or DLC?
Joel changing a little bit in 5 years of recruting people outside of Jackson is not strange.
Joel changed DRAMATICLY through out Part 1 too (that's the entire point) in not even 1/5th of that time.
Tommy has recruited people for Jackson for even longer and is used to introducing himself to recruit them into Jackson.
That's why HE does it so easily to Abby (No it wasn't Joel)
>out of character and contrived
If you weren't paying attention to what was unfolding on screen, then sure.
The way he died was consistent with the tone of the series i.e. brutal and miserable. People who say "oh it's not the fact that he died it's HOW he died" always propose some corny-ass shit as alternative like "he should have BRAVELY sacrificed himself, taking out MULTIPLE infected and militiamen to save Ellie's life" or some saccharine nonsense like that
There wasn't anything out of character about it
Just started watching the video, but I thought I chime in on one part you made earlier about video games as art at around 1:58 minutes in:
Personally, I think if we want video game to be art, we have to embrace the idea that a video game shouldn't always have to be "entertaining" in order for it to be art. What's important is that it has to be interesting or do something that challenges our ideas about the world. We need to let go of the idea that we need to constantly be entertained in order for something to be worthwhile.
I don't think TLOU Part 2 completely sticks to landing, but I strongly appreciate its attempt at doing more than just "being entertaining." I'm glad the game exists for that reason. It took narrative risks and chose to be ballsy. That takes guts.
I have my gripes with the story. Personally I really wanted to play as only ellie. But the thing that always makes me come back to this game is simply the gameplay. Its too polished and satisfying to not go back and play through.
Thats exactly what I said! The 1st game is definitely the best story wise but gameplay wise part 2 blows the 1st game out of the water
To me Part 2 felt like a part 3, we should've had some actual time with Joel and Ellie post part 1, and take time introducing us to Abby her dad and their perspective of the events of part 1, leading into a less rushed properly expressed part 3
This is sooo true and I hope that this is what they do with the tv show. The game's pace as a problem and the fact that they had a character that we did not know a single thing about kill such a beloved character and then making us play as her when that was the last thing anyone wanted to do.
Hell no, you are supposed to hate Abby in the beginning. You dehumanize the other side and see them as evil.
I love TLOU2 but this actually would have been an interesting approach
Yeah no
My thoughts: It had really satisfying combat/exploration. The gore system was amazing, with crazy details going into the sound quality and animations.
I actually wish we had more of those big open areas in seattle, where we could explore various buildings, finding secrets etc. We had like one big area at the start of seattle, then it got fairly linear after that.
I actually thought the big open area in seattle was the most boring part of the game. The rest was perfection and the story made it a masterpiece
@@Nicholas_Vthts a pretty hot take, there’s so much side stuff to do there
@@architdewan6717 He's obviously trolling!
@@takemeseriouslyplx2124 I’m definitely not trolling.. I thought that area was the most boring part of the game. It was still fine though but it was just a lot of exploring and puzzles. A lot of people say the pacing was bad in Abby’s part. I actually think the pacing is bad for Ellie’s part and especially in the Seattle area. I like Abby’s part better
@@Nicholas_Vhow can it be boring if there was so much to do, hell one of the most heart worthy moments was a complete side thing in Seattle Downtown. I don’t wanna spoil but search up Ellie singing in Seattle
They could have wrote off joel without killing him Abby could have seriously injured him to the point he is useless in a fight, anyway I think if they had let the players play as Abby first up to the joel encounter then you play as Ellie and you stay as Ellie after Joel's death now you have a more enjoyable plot to at least playthrough
Honestly when the first game happened I called bulshit that he just walked away from all of that scot-free. So I kind of felt Justified when he got killed in such a way during part 2. Also makes me think about how in life sometimes people go out not how they want to go out but rather in almost a cheated way. That's just life and I was actually impressed that they did it the way they did
I wasnt surprised Joel got killed he did too much to not have that outcome despite his reason for doing so either however a part of me love to think about if joel survived the encounter but waa changed in a permanent way seeing Ellie being driven by revenge and getting lost in that is a punishment in itself
The story wouldn’t work if Joel survived. There is no chance Abby would have left Wyoming with him still alive, there’s no chance Ellie would’ve gone after her if he was still alive, and there’s no chance the player would’ve saw red enough if he was alive still. Joel’s death is literally the only way this whole story could get put into motion. It had to happen
@@nickhoadley6789 the story could still work Abby is driven by revenge she could very easily be satisfied if she gave joel brain damage or crippled him even if she didnt kill him. She hates what Joel has done even if she didnt succeed in killing him the fact that joel will never be able to defend himself in a zombie apocolypse is a fate worse than death. The thing is that they were other ways Naughty dog could have wrote off Joel as a character I know killing off a character is always the most popular solution but sometimes it might not be the right choice when it comes to a story that is about hate and how that changes you. Ellie would have still wanted to go after Abby after she damn near beat Joel to death and made her watch, the events of the game still happen but this time instead of ellie seeing joel when she lets Abby go she looks at lev while she is strangling Abby and sees herself in him when Abby beat Joel and she lets her go realizing if she continues this cycle Lev could comeback and do the same to her and do it in front of JJ
@@theoutsiderjess4869 this just isn’t true though. Joel literally had to die for this story to work. Whether or not you think killing him was a good idea is up to each player, but it’s necessary for the story. There was no chance in hell Abby would’ve let Joel live. She was so blinded by her hate towards him that it consumed her life. She wasn’t gonna have him in her hands after so many years of pain and just decide to let him go because he was hurt enough
What I find wild, is that everyone acknowledges that this game has some of the best graphics, sound design, voice acting, and really anything that involves presentation, ever. It also has one of the best stealth combat gameplay ever. Some of the best AI ever...so it essentially is one of the best in every category, except not everyone likes its story.
Which is fine, but there is no way marking the game a 3 out of 10 or something makes sense. Objectively speaking, it's at least a 7. Due to how incredible it is in so many areas.
Except it is a 3/10 or less. Everything else is just built upon what was already there, you should expect that shit at bare minimum and then to be carried up by the story. The story is so fucking dogshit it dragged it down
@@TheNightman.No, this is you being emotional and unable to look at things objectively
Metal gear solid 5 has way better stealth gameplay and way better ai.
The worst part for me is that they start out with typical last of us moral greyness, where everyone is just kind of a dark brutal person and very few step into genuine good or evil, before they then ruin this trying and failing to create a clear right and wrong in the dynamic.
Abby killing Joel isnt treated as an act of evil its just sort of "well, he killed her dad and was no saint himself so something like was bound to happen sooner or later", Joel's murder isnt framed as a good thing because he was a bad person, Ellie isnt initially treated like a bad person for her brutality. Which is good, thematically appropriate and morally sensible...........and then they go and force abby to have a really unnecessary redemption arc (where she doesnt even learn any lesson that would make her reconsider her actions) and now she's apparently supposed to be a good person just in time to fight Ellie.
Its simultaneously painfully shallow and also really confusing what they were trying to say with her entire section of the game, Neil I didn't need this woman to be "redeemed" to understand her, I would've done the exact same thing if Joel killed my dad it made sense as is.
Abby is clearly struggling with what she did to Joel for her entire section of the game. There are so many things that show this. One example would be her sleeping poorly on a consistent basis until she saves Yara and Lev, at which point she finally wakes up peacefully. Along with this, Abby is never painted as “a good person” during her fight with Ellie. You are not supposed to be rooting for either her or Ellie. The Last of Us, Parts I and II, are both stories about love and the power that it holds. Whereas Part I puts an emphasis on the good forces that love can bring, Part II focuses more on the bad forces that love can bring. When Ellie and Abby finally fight in the theater, it is meant to show the sheer impact that love can have on people, as it has led the two of them to such a dark and brutal place.
did we play the same game? in what world what abby did to joel was indicted as good in the game? you can sympathize with her and understand her motives, does not mean it was morally right lol.
@@nickhoadley6789 I picked up on what you're describing during their rematch, but during the theater fight if that was the intent it didnt come across that way to me at all. Maybe if they had you switching between the two characters for different sections of the fight that may have illustrated that idea better, but as it stands it seemed to portray abby as the more righteous of the two right up until the end and even then she leaves the fight in a much better position than Ellie does and I dont think that was an accident.
@@fionn2220Idk, I feel like you are misconstruing who has the upper hand and who is viewed as "winning" as who is right or wrong. I personally don't think the story makes any of the clear statements that you're suggesting. That's like saying that Naughty Dog thought Joel was morally right at the end of the first game just because he "won".
@@anastasiiaiurkova8897 I said the opposite of that? That her actions werent portrayed as evil or righteous just sort of the expected outcome of Joel's actions and their impact on Abby. I also disagree, of course you dont have to see her as morally right, but I do and I dont even like her very much. Joel killed her dad and (debatably) doomed humanity, as far as im concerned she had every right in the world to get her revenge on him. How long it took was a bit over the top but if someone killed my dad with a scalpel I would hope Id be even worse so its not very relevant to me.
my only problem with the game (and personally what I believe should've been an incredibly crucial detail to show) is Joel's paranoia of strangers (such as when he ran over that one guy who was faking being hurt, or the fact he left a family on the side of the road when the apocalypse barely began) being completely gone in TLOU2. I understand that if someone lives in a specific environment for an extended period, someone gets accustomed to that lifestyle, but all I wanted was for them to SHOW it through visual storytelling or through a showing of a change in demeanor from Joel.
The story structure is also a bit of a mess but it wasn't as god-awful as people made it out to be, but it was a problem nonetheless and I felt that the story could've/should've been formated similarly to how "Gone Girl" was.
Regardless I'm still getting the remake because the game overall is still incredible and personally made me fall in love with it, flaws included.
honestly I get that point but I also think think a big reason on why his guard was down because this time he was with a community of people and surronded by actual friends and family. I think living with people you care about plus in a protected community kind of forced him to be softer as he was not in constant threat anymore.
@@blindstargoogly7448 yeah I agree but I wish they showed it more clearly rather than expecting the player or watcher (when the second season of the live action comes out) to assume that’s what happened, with a simple scene of showing Joel welcoming new people in or in the same way you saw the grandpa in “Up” age but use that to show how the community in TLOU2 grew to that scale while making Joel a focus in that.
@@blindstargoogly7448that's not realistic to real veterans they're still alert 😊
No one ever considers that he was just trying to save a woman’s life and then found himself escaping a horde with her and ends up in a room full of strangers. He and Tommy were outnumbered - there was no point in being paranoid because there was nothing he could have done if they wanted to hurt/rob/kill him
@@nottomboyd the first time Joel meets Henry and Sam he was willing to kill Joel in the same way that Henry was willing to kill Joel which literally illustrated that this paranoia isn’t just Joels. You can’t have the paranoid strong old man being killed without that paranoia playing into the narrative or at the very least showing change in order to say “he feels safer in this world now, and he is much more trusting of strangers and people he doesn’t know in general”. I think ignoring everything that happened in tlou1 is a but reductive of what/who Joel is and reducing him to “he was just trying to save a girl” especially with the back catalog of shown paranoia and trauma he’s had throughout the story is a bit reductive of the character. And during the sequence specifically prior to getting inside the house they were in, im shocked there wasn’t any “where you guys going?” after being told they were just “passing through” or questioning the odd demeanors of Abby and Owen talking to the side or simple curiosities someone (paranoid or not) might have about people camped right outside their base
My main issue is still that everything felt so forced. Joel lets his guard down so easily to get brutally murdered. Ellie kills dogs, pregnant women, becomes absolutely brutal, full of rage, combined with terrible pacing gameplay. Abby plays with dogs, cares for her friends, starts for no reason to protect two random kids which seems totally out of character for her, combined with better pacing and the more interesting gameplay sections. Then there are the countless flashbacks to give us that satisfying feeling of playing as Ellie and Joel again, even though they wanted to kill Joel off for storytelling purposes. If the writers wanted to make the protagonist/antagonist discussion less black and white, make sure to not portray the characters in black and white. Show that Abby and Ellie both can be remorseful, caring and forgiving, but at the same time also absolutely brutal, toxic and destructive.
Ellie was upset when she found out Mel was pregnant. Abby was happy when Dina was pregnant knowing she was killing both.
This was a tangent meant to seem sequential.
My biggest issues were the pacing, having the split in the middle which is only surprising the first time if you weren't spoiled, and lack of agency especially with the quick time events.
Joel can make mistakes, but the same thing could have happened with him not making mistakes if she saw his face. The game could have had moments with Ellie then switched to Abby much earlier hunting her father's killer. You don't realize until later that it's Joel. The audience still hates Abby, but understands her and essentially lead to the outcome. Switching back and forth earlier could have helped the pacing moving characters to where they needed to be then travel areas with very little around. The game is amazing, but the story and structure needed more of a collaborative effort than a single voice.
"Joel lets his guard down so easily to get brutally murdered."
I've always seen this as a crutch people use to hate what happened to him, but it makes sense within the story. Joel in part 1 is a grizzled smuggler in a containment zone where they literally hang you for your perceived crimes. Jackson isn't that, he grew soft and comfortable since the end of part 1. He's around kids and parents, not killers. And yes, he might think someone could be hunting him for what he did to the Fireflies, but what are the chances this random group is ex Fireflies and they are looking for and found the only supposed Joel left in the world?
@@alexs1640Literally like the first scene in tlou 2 confirms how joel is still as careful as ever and its bad writing to not show it if that was the case.
I liked begrudgingly playing as Abby, only to have my viewpoint expanded by explaining why. And later found myself enjoying her as a character and her resolve, which magnificently matched Ellie's resolve. Eye for an eye. Dad for a dad. I understand people wanted feel good moments. I, however, liked tlou2. I never once found myself debating not playing the game.
W take
Fully agree screw these crybaby’s who are to immature to see both perspectives
@@Mikey.p257 I'm a crybaby for not wanting to drop $70 on a game with an awful narrative that disinterests me? Okay.
@@jordanthompson8268 No you're a cry baby for coming to that opinion without playing it lol, no actual experience means you're just a giving in to what everyone else says cos you like being part of the tribe
@@XxParadoxGameplaysxX When the game first came out I watched a playthrough with no commentary, you know, something that's been on this platform for years. I've seen the game's entire story from front to back several times. It's what has informed my decision not to ever purchase the game.
The Last of Us Part 2 is a flawed masterpiece. The only thing I could possibly say negative about it is the structure which is jarring. Other than that, I believe it is one of the more challenging pieces of storytelling I’ve ever consumed. Challenging doesn’t always mean good, but I can’t deny, it’s also made me feel feelings I’ve never experienced before playing a game. There’s something to take away from that. And I take it positively
I think the fact its jarring is what makes it so compelling. That is precisely what the developers intended. SOO many people were against Abby and rightfully so but it means that this is exactly what the developers were going for when paired with the theme of the game.
@@ThisMrMisterI agree. Whether someone sees it as a negative or not, Naughty Dog did everything with thought in it. Everything is in service of either the characters, the story, and its themes. I can’t help but commend them for being so ballsy.
@@ThisMrMister The developers wanted you to love fuck nugget, instead the fans revolted and it showed
Completely agreed@@punkrocker4life9674
I love the gameplay ( mostly the combat parts), the animations and environments. Story definitely let me down but I don’t hate it as much anymore honestly. Its so damn fun to kill people in this game its so strange. I love the combat and the animations more than anything.
The combat is far and away the game's greatest strength. Especially the combat vs humans w dogs
Agreed. The combat and the new enemies were amazing. The story was Ok. It wasn't Shakespeare and it didn't have to be. It's just a video game.
Well they went from a decent story in the first game with exceptional character development. To a teenage drama which alienated half of the fan base. This is why you got people who love and people who hate it.
When you smash a fucking battle axe into the body of a living breathing human being, the game does a tremendous job of conveying the weight, rage and gravitas of that act. Or when u ram a dirty rusty shiv into your victims neck it feels so visceral and well "real" in TLOU II. Like yeah this is steel cutting through flesh making a person bleed out. Or that steel pipe I pummel people with is breaking all of the bones in their face. How the blows connect and the animations are flawless plus how the camera shake underlines the weight of the action it's so amazingly satisfying and yet terrifying.
Nooo :( that's wrong!! The whole point of tlous2 is violence is bad and you're terrible for liking those things
(Or so Neil hoped)
Great video and on point! Lol while I enjoyed the gameplay I feel like the story itself was emotional torture for the sake of emotional torture, this was the first game I ever finished that literally had me say “that was too much” and I’ve yet to replay it yet despite the great gameplay
Me too I swear I told myself I will never play this game again because it was too mentally draining but now with the remaster I’m going to give it another go
Strange I had the exact opposite experience. I never replayed the first because the ending hit me too hard and frankly I watched Logan and Children of men and enjoyed those narratives more. But I had to replay the sequel because the narrative was so captivating and unique
TLOU was a masterpiece. TLOU2 was like what would happen if all the characters became you average dummies from a bad horror movie. ("IM JOEL, WE LIVE HERE, THIS IS HOW MUCH AMMO WE HAVE, I KILLED A SURGEON" he screamed aloud)
Strawman. It doesn't justify your hate.
@chandllerburse737 and in TLOU part one, they refused to give their name to anyone. Point being they either totally changed the characters or they changed offscreen. Either way, terrible and lazy writing. It’s obvious druckman fired the woman who was the brains behind the writing team. Probably because he wants team members he can control or fuck.
@@Ha-fy6zv his character wasn't changed. You do realise Joel meets people all the time. He goes out to look for strangers and recruit them to Jackson. He has probably revealed his name multiple times because at the end of the day if someone wants to harm you, your name wouldn't matter. His name only holds value to the fireflies, a group he hasn't even seen in yrs since he disbanded them. You are not thinking but just want to hate. There was nothing Joel could have done. Abbys group were cool at the start till ofcourse they knew who he was. There is no hunter experience that'll save him because it was never an ambush to begin with.
@chandllerburse737 ah yes, just because she resigned means she went of her own free will. Ever heard of a golden parachute? I'm sure they offered her a lot of money to keep her mouth shut about druckman creeping on his subordinates.
@@Owen-sx4jjYou're not thinking because you love some trash sequel that sold half as much as the first game. It sold less for a reason, the writing is trash. The whole game is Druckman self inserting himself because his ego is too big.
And Joel NEVER gave his name away freely in the first game. He refused to tell anyone when he was with Tess, even her companions.
You should try playing the first game sometime, it's much better written.
1:45 that is such a limiting discussion. There is absolutely no reason video games can’t be both. Either one or the other or both combined. Video games are the most interactive, and perhaps expansive form of entertainment and art.
There is no logical reason to limit and gatekeep what they can and cannot be besides some Joe schmoes on the internet yelling “ I don’t want muh video games to be like this or like that.”
Luke milks this topic as often as Naughty Dog milks these 2 games.
To me Part 2 is a rare AAA game where it did not play it safe and took risks. In doing that though, made its flaws more apparent. Still it’s a game that does more right than wrong, and when it hits, it hits like no other game I’ve ever played. It’s a great game and very memorable for all the right and wrong reasons.
I agree, although I much prefer the story of the 1st game I give huge credits for the writers of part 2 for atleast making a story that takes risks and doesn't follow the usual Hollywood play it safe type BS
lol the game you described around a minute in is totally “Papers Please”
I thought this boat sailed
My opinion on the whole message vs fun debate is pretty simple, great games can do both. Disco Elysium, Deus Ex, Silent Hill, BioShock, all great games that both were fun to play and had strong messages. I find it disappointing some developers believe the two things are mutually exclusive.
I was completely Meh about the game to be honest. But I can see why it was so polarizing. Me personally there were way too many characters that I was supposed to care about but didn’t and the game was simply too long in my opinion. I loved the focused, shorter story of the first game. As far as Joel, didn’t mind what happened but the timing probably could have been done better.
My main love it or hate it critique is that Ellie essentially became the thing she hated Joel for, a person who tricked across the country in search of a goal, only to eventually get to that said goal and go back on everything that she said. You can either find this a clever way of showing that she’s turned into Joel, or dogshit writing
the latter.
How I see it. If you’re going to call the end goal of part 2 pointless, then you have to for part 1 as well.
The last of us story is no different then movies and books of the past . Its like Gamers dont understand story telling and real human emotion.
If anything, Ellie’s journey is actually the complete opposite of Joel’s in Part I. Joel starts out as a lost, broken man who is able to find himself once again through Ellie, leading to him choosing his new life over the entire world because he just can’t stand losing a daughter again. He can’t overcome his nature. During Ellie’s journey in Part II, she loses herself, but is able to pull herself back in and begin searching for peace before it’s too late. She is able to overcome her nature. In Joel’s case, Ellie was all he had left, so there was no other choice for him. However, there was another choice for Ellie. Joel was not all she had, so she was able to come to terms with what happened and start to move on
They decided to switch the main character with the daughter of some random NPC you kill in the first game. That’s not good writing and Abby is way too muscular wtf is that about it’s not realistic at all
TLOU-2 failed in one major way: the narrative and pacing was shit. If Abby's storyline was first, fewer people would have gotten mad at Joel's death and actually would have felt conflicted since at that point they would have cared for Abby. But no, they wanted to "subvert expectations" and were shocked to find that people fucking hated that. This is what happens when a beloved character is unceremoniously murdered by an unpleasant newcomer and the writers try their absolute hardest to make you like them after the fact. It feels forced and artificial. Switching the narrative around may not have even helped, but by killing Joel in the first HOUR of the game they set impossible expectations that they just couldn't realistically meet and that's on them.
And then there's Ellie's sections. This shit was just ridiculous. Nothing about the despicable acts that Ellie did made me feel "uncomfortable". They just made me feel irritated. You can't have me shoot a guy in the head, Ellie then calls him a fucker, but you turn around and say "oh look at the bad-evil thing you did!" by having someone yell the name of the guy I just murdered. Hearing people yell out the name of a dog that you force me to kill to progress doesn't make me feel anything either. Since much like the aforementioned fucker, you literally made me do it. The only way not to do bad things would be to turn the damn game off. Which in hindsight, I probably should have. "Evil" acts have no weight to them when the player is forced to do them.
Even with the Abby/Ellie stuff set aside, the story itself just kinda fails on a basic level thanks to the limp-wristed cop-out of an ending Bad Puppy decided to go with. This is what happens when a story about right and wrong is penned by people who believe they're never wrong. I would have respected this game more if at the end, they allow the player to make the choice on whether to kill Abby. That would have been pretty wild and actually had subverted my expectations. But like everything else in this game, Disobedient Canine already made that choice for you. I'm starting to think that they should probably make movies, instead of unnecessary (and unwanted) sequels to already great games.
If it’s Abby’s story first (which no doubt maybe the situation for early drafts), it would defeat the whole purpose of the story.
Change it it from "the narrative is shit" to "I didn't like the direction ND went" and you would actually have a valid comment.
It didn't fail in any way
Joel instantly became dumb was so unreal
It was the stupidest thing ever. Hey stranger, "My name is Joel Miller and this is my brother Tommy Miller."
@txup92g33 Tommy told Abby their names. Not Joel.
Also it's literally 5 years inbetween Part 1 and 2 where Joel spends his time recruiting people outside of Jackson and taking them in. If you can't believe Joel can't change in 5 years you missed the point of Part 1 where he changes completely from start to finish in just a few months.
@@misterhoobomaster Joel gaves his name. Literally the cutscene proves you wrong.
@@misterhoobomaster All that supposed change during those 4 years (yeah it's 4, not 5) happened off screen, no one can definitively prove that such change has really happened. Ideally in a well written story you would gradually show and set up such a character change to the audience, and not let them write the story for you and just assume that it has maybe happened.
@misterhoobomaster you're right on the Joel part, but Tommy saying their first names was idiotic nonetheless
After Jedi survivor I feel like they should have taken Abby in the same direction that game took Bode where at first Bode seems like a genuinely great guy doing what he can for his daughter but as time went on the game revealed more of his true motives, Abby could have been like that, or maybe I’m just dumb and that would make the games narrative even more controversial
You aren't dumb at all. And that idea is a good one. Its just been done to death in every form of media for decades. Part 1 was ground breaking for gaming narratives. If naughty dog hadn't done something just as ground breaking the game would have gotten slapped with being too predictable.
I don't think this is a bad idea. I think the story they wanted to tell would've been better served if we connected with Abby before she killed Joel just like we get to know Bode before he betrays Cal.
People will say that was the point that you're supposed to hate Abby before stepping into her shoes and you know what it's new but it's not going to resonate with everyone and even piss people off ND and Druckmann knew that though.
only game where I skipped all the cutscenes when Laura bailey was there
TLOU2 is supposed to be dark and gritty , definitely not an upbeat good time. There's an M on the box for a reason. You play for the story, the quality, the gameplay, the spectacle, and those things are leagues above the rest of the industry.
I absolutely want a part 3. What we need is more developers like naughty Dog to make games for casual gamers
It's not dark and gritty, it's a hilarious horribly written garbage that could have been written by an edgy 13 year old in a basement.
😂
@@ash8244 Must be why it's one of the highest decorated games in existence right? You sound more like a jealous fanboy than didn't even get to experience it, much less understand it. It's the most emotional game I've ever played. I'd dare to argue it's the most emotional game ANYONE has ever played. It's SUPPOSED to make you feel uncomfortable. That's what casuals don't understand.
@@B-U-T-C-H-E-Rit isnt but sure buddy , check up on your stats
@@RonhozZ It's among the highest decorated video games out there. Luke even makes mention of that fact in this video
Permitting logical and narrative inconsistencies to fit one’s broader desire to like something whilst using the same failed criteria to roast something they don’t isn’t in depth analysis. It’s simply lazy
The game definitely asks A LOT of the player in terms of forgiveness and empathy. I did enjoy it the first time through, but I haven't been able to get myself to play it again because I know how tough it all was. Plus there's spooky zombies no thank you
The remastered is more of a directors cut since it has “lost levels “
I think season 2 has the chance to do a lot better as a show. A problem with the game is u had to do all the stuff urself. It made u feel just terrible at times. The show might be better with that and the narrative thing where u kill a bunch even tho the theme is about the cycle of violence. Idk I’m just ranting but someone explain it better if u can
It might but also a lot of the story was based on you playing and doing XYZ. Your supposed to feel taxed and worn down by the end becayse you’ve seen so much and played it. I don’t know how much will translate for a show but flipping between characters and perspectives probably will work better as they divide the story into digestible hour chunks vs a 30 hour game you can take your time moving through
That’s kind of the point though, that’s what makes video games special and that’s why this game is historic. We’ve all seen shows and movies like this, but actually playing a game where you play as the antagonist is unique to video games
Not just joels brutal death but how he let himself die. How he gave them his name and was so giving with all his info to strangers. That was not who joel was and he would have never given that up, but it had to happen.
People change with time, he lived in Jackson for years letting his guard down. Also he is older and people make mistakes. Doesn't need to be more complicated than this. He is a person, he had it coming and Abby had her reasons to do it.
@@Fyrapan90 people change with time is your reasoning??. So do all people change with time? Let his guard down that much? YOUR stretching. Bottom line is, it was bad writing that didn't make sense hence bad decision in terms of being true to plot and character based on last narrative.
This is just quite simply misrepresenting what actually happened lmao. Tommy told Abby their names before they had any reason to suspect she had a group of heavily armed friends nearby. The only thing Joel and Tommy did wrong debatably was telling only Abby their names and rescuing her in the first place. They rescue her because they’re better people now and they tell her their names because she could’ve been a new member to Jackson, once saved. Apart from that Joel and Tommy did nothing else wrong and at every point try to either get away from the group or negotiate with them.
Opposite of plot armour just as shit
@@Fyrapan90a Boy Scout doesn’t forget being a Boy Scout when he is 30 years old. Those memories and that skill set is imbedded in their memory forever and will be remembered when put in that situation. He was in Jackson a few years sure but he was surviving for 20 before that. i don’t care about the name giving thing cause it is straw pulling in my opinion but the “Jackson nerfed him” idea is kinda bizarre to me.
1:21 Hey! Have you been spying on me? 😮
The most painful thing for me was: Vaccine/hostpital situation... there is 0 explanation why Jerry wanted to do so quickly the operation... there is 0 profess that the operation would give us vaccine (which where I found out that there is no such thing as a vaccine against the fungus in our modern world and TLOU world stuck in 2013 medically so it should be impossible) which make this thing a just a plot to talk about if Joel doomed the world or not... and the situation that Ellie don't know that Marlene order to kill Joel if he started something and that she didn't figure it out that she was unconscious and no one asked her and she blamed Joel for making the decison but in reality it was Abby father and Merlene - that one was painful because then we have flashback with Abby that "she would sacrificed herself for the world if she would be on Ellie position" but there is a plot hole here: Abby DECIDED and Ellie DIDN'T... xD
Nobody who wrote for the first game bothered to ask any scientists if this was even possible but even if it was and we ignore that fact the first game paints the picture of the Fireflies being no better than FEMA they're incompetent terrorists with delusions of grandeur hoping by holding the vaccine they'd get to be on top, the restoration of a pre apocalypse was nothing but a dead dream at that point. The Fireflies didn't really know what they were doing and Ellie would've likely died for nothing.The first game ends on a great note of ambiguity and players have discussed what they would do in Joel's shoes and if it was right etc.
Druckmann and part 2 retroactively decided Joel was not only completely in the wrong but the Fireflies would've succeeded in their endeavor so Joel 100% doomed humanity instead of the first game never saying that it was a 100% guarantee they'd have succeeded. An irritating retcon that was entirely unnecessary it doesn't matter if the Fireflies would've succeeded Joel killed Abby's dad and that's why she went after him.
My favorite game of all time. I'm waiting for the stupidly named remaster AKA actual director's cut to do my 5th playthrough
AMEN BROTHER
Flexing your communication and educational background on this one Luke, and I'm here for it. Your rhetoric and oratory style has gotten so strong, and I enjoy your pragmatic and logical approach to the game industry.
The part about pacing in this video really resonated with me. I felt so strung along playing the game that the only thing that actually kept me interested was the small pieces of side story like Boris in the neighborhood, the hospital, or the crashed boat. I didn't care about the main story and the times where I did care about the main story were so spread out that when I played them the story beats were real life days apart from each other and didn't have the same emotional impact. It never got me invested enough after Joel's initial death to care about anything other than the gameplay mechanics. i have a feeling the TV show is going to be better then the game for me because they will be limited to 9-10 episodes that can actually pack an emotional punch rather than 25 hours of a drawn-out game.
I’ve struggled with this a bit but for some reason your pfp looks like the Act man
Woh to say the AI and stealth are better than anything out today is a plain lie, you could easily sit in a doorway waiting to stealth kill whole rooms one by one.
spoken like someone who didn’t play grounded
Agreed. I played on the hardest difficulty and apart from the "boss" fights, using stealth felt cheating as it was so dead easy to just... wait and pick off enemies. It didn't work as well as in something like Dishonored or Batman to me.
For real, sit in a corner or behind piece of cover after setting traps in all doorways. Throw a rock nearby and watch the enemies walk into the traps mice going for the cheese on the mouse trap.
@@niallp.o.7567 No because I didn't want to go through a terribly paced slog of a game all over again. What kind of argument is this anyway? grounded would just show up the bad AI even more because it's so easily manipulated, and the best way to get though the hardest difficulty.
I think that while The Last of Us: Part II had a good idea for a story, the execution was so monumentally poor that it comes across as very disingenuous and very hostile to people that weren't connecting to the hemes. The whole transition to Abby at the climax of Ellie's story was so jarring and completely removes the players from the emotional beat. Not only that but the writers are telling you revenge is bad throughout the whole story but for some reason they justify Abby's revenge. I don't remember Abby ever feeling remorse over killing Joel, all she really shows is reluctance to killing Ellie.
My idea for how this story should play out is tell both Abby and Ellie's story at the same time, breaking everything into chapters and alternating playing both characters. Abby's storyline begins with her planning to kill Joel and ending with her finally committing the act of killing Joel. Ellie's storyline begins with her trying to find Abby and ending with her catching up to her. This reserves the emotional beats at the end of their respective storylines and the whole theme of revenge being bad would be that much more effective because Joel's death and retribution would be back to back.
Throughout their storylines, each character would show their uncertainty, Abby with following through with killing Joel and Ellie grappling with how far she is going to get revenge. It preserves the theme so much more.
But the story we got was so broken and disjointed that the interesting story was so hidden behind so many nonsensical story points and confusing structure.
The difference between the first game and the second for me is that the first game had hope and light moments in such a cruel game world but the second game took out any bit of hope and just filled it with bleakness. I don’t want to play a game to feel depressed.
I have been thinking of this game for the better part of 2 years every month or so I watch it played by someone.
Your video gave me a good perspective on the opening the leak and the pacing of the game.
The game is based on the Greek tragedy The Orestia. With the player being Cassandra.. she is doomed to know how the story plays out but unable to effect rhe outcome(Cassandra is written on the movie theatre you hide in to give you more hints.)
I think the leak was intentional. To put you I'm the position of knowing it's coming but you can't do anything to change the outcome.. you just know it's coming and it's going to hurt. Then you go back to play as ellie and watch her fall into anger and depression... you can't do anything to help her just watch it happen...
Then they push you to Abby and make you hate her... see her perspective, learn she is just a person who is consumed by hatred, is haunted by her fathers death and also Joels death.l, and finally empathise with her.
The point is to keep you in a loop of hatred and depression
Yeah, leaks sucks, but there is still that issue with the "Story Trailer" which was released around a month and half before the game, which is quite literally False Advertisement.
Like, that is the biggest issue to me, overall, because we now have a perfect example of outright lying, to try and sell a product, which isn't something we should ever allow or be "ok" with.
For anyone who doesn't know what trailer I'm talking about, try and look it up and tell me what is wrong with it, cause it's pretty glaring what they did, just so they could "Disprove Leaks".
😂 even for someone who likes the story, the bait in the trailer went a bit too far.
@@suisinghoraceho2403 thank you. Since I didn't even play it, I try not to talk about the story or anything like that, but I don't think it should be such a controversial thing, to say that we shouldn't see any developer, big or small, pull a stunt like Naughty Dog did.
I seriously think the gaming community as a whole, should be able to support that stance, but most just sum my complaint up as some kind of criticism of the game. That, or they call me names.
So thx again for being reasonable, glad you liked the game and can be reasonable when I complain about the Marketing. 😁👍
@@chriswihulu It’s a sad thing people rarely read your stuff let alone try to get what you are saying these days.
@@suisinghoraceho2403 I have pretty much resigned myself to dying on this hilltop, might be a lonely existence, but I just can't support the developer or the game for that reason, even though I loved the first game to bits!
Hopefully, they can make another game I can support and enjoy in the future, but it just ain't gonna be this game.
@@chriswihulu Betrayal is the worst type of hurt. And no disrespect to Jessie (I really like him as a fellow Asian), but swap him out for Joel in the trailer is one step too far. That said, it’s usually a different team doing the marketing and developing the game.
My main issue with this games story is the structure and pacing, particularly in the middle where it builds up to a climax and then we switch characters and go back in time, disrupting the momentum that was being built
i thought the game came out like a year ago. no clue why its got a remaster already.
Little offtopic here: what keyboard is Luke using? This thing is so awesome! 😮
I just hate that they made you play as Abby and even fight against Ellie when I just don't care about her. I'm not having fun playing as a character that killed and is trying to kill my beloved characters from the last game.
They're trying to have thus cycle of violence story, but it just didn't hit and I remember actively waiting to pass on Abby every time I was forces to play as her.
Game play was great, video quality was great, and the atmosphere was great
The major problem I had with Abby was that she had no redeemable qualities. She didn't even a little bit bad about what she did - even though the people around her did.
I agree with the whole section of Pacing Problems and Emotional Strain. I play games to have fun as well. When this dumpster of a fire game, had me go through all of the horrible shit, and finding some happiness seeing Dinah and Ellie being happy, it threw me into another badly emotional roller coaster (is the best way I can describe this without swearing-) all because of pacing and there's no payoff. I thought I get to kill Abby or get the choice to do so. Nope. No emotional payoff after the hell I went through. In terms of entertainment, that sucked. I'm with your friend, in the video, Luke. I'll play Monster Hunter. That game makes me happy. This game, makes me feel like hell and it didn't even let me get the huge emotional payoff because that was stripped for me, because the game thought this should be better. I think Ghost of Tsushima did this better in the ending, by letting you choose, based on the experience you went through. I'm so upset that this game lost to TLOU at the time. What a hell of a year that was.
22:50 Yeah, but back then it was accepted way better that Ellie would take point in the story to save Joel ( I think Ahsley said she convinced Neil to make Ellie more of the badass we know). In Part 2 the trailer was intentionally misleading and later in the game we switched to a character all hated and where stuck with for 10 hours...
Abby is dope as hell dunno what you are talking about lol. For 5 minutes I was bummed but she’s badass and way more fun
I think it’s a very interesting and brave sequel with a lot of writing problems. It takes a lot of big risks, but the thing with risks is sometimes they don’t pay out and you’re left with major parts of the story feeling a bit rough. It’s an incredible looking game with a lot of interesting and difficult to deal with themes. I’m happy it exists. I do not think it’s perfect but I would rather have it as this weird artistic experiment than not have it at all. On the whole I think the experience is more great than bad.
I almost feel guilty and ashamed or even dumb that I love tlou2 because of the controversy and heavy criticism it gets. I loved the acting, gameplay, cinematography, soundtrack, sound design, themes, tone, it’s darkness, it’s somberness, it’s humanity and yes it’s story. I do agree that it’s got pacing and structure issues, but I just can’t not love it and sometimes find it hard to understand why it got so much hate and heavy criticism.
it often gets labeled as a “revenge bad” story, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I think it’s a story about grief, guilt, shame, depression, empathy, self destruction, love, hate and ultimately forgiveness.
I don't like the game at all but don't feel ashamed for liking it. Nobody but you has any right to decide what you like people telling you you're wrong for liking it can be promptly told to f*ck off. We can debate if it's good or bad but enjoyment is subjective to each individual and should stay that way.
You are in fact emotionally mature insightful and intelligent.
My problems with the narrative can be summed up to it being a plot driven story instead of a character driven story instead like the first game. Characters are moved around like chess pieces to get the plot going and not enough attention was paid to the details and character motivations to make it make sense. Edit: The marketing also straight up lies to everyone. As you go over the marketing says Joel is going to be more involved in the story than he actually is. ND knew this and did so on purpose knowing people wouldn't bite otherwise. One of the Metal Gear games, I think 3, did it right all the footage of Snake was used in the prologue no model swapping necessary.
Unless you're writing a sprawling fantasy epic that takes place over many years and differing lands and is more about time and places, there is no such thing as the difference between a plot driven story and a character driven story. Character is plot. There are characters in Part II and they move the plot.
What you're probably trying to say is that Part II is more of an external genre based story than internal genre. And perhaps there's a grain of truth to that. But it's certainly not a fully external genre based story.
Yep, I don't even need to talk about the story, the characters or anything else, when we see what they did with the Story Trailer. Legit, it's so egregious that I have no interest in actually playing the game, because pulling a stunt like ND did, isn't something I've ever seen before.
You're right that it was Metal Gear Solid, but the second game in that line and yes, they did not make extra material, to Bait buyers into playing the game, as if to say "don't believe the leaks!".
This game was a very unpleasant experience. It made me feel like shit, and I absolutely love it. And for those who wanted a more "heroic death" for Joel, here's a challenge: Name ONE character in TLOU who got a "heroic death". No one dies well in this world. Apart from Eugene of course.
Tess literally had a heroic death, there's your answer.
@@TrulyAB Not really. A badass survivalist who got bit? The ONE thing you shouldn't do? When she was gunned down she was already dead. Nothing heroic there. Just a pragmatic way to end things.
@@Dustemikkel_Rev Nothing heroic there? Lmao, your memory needs some refreshing. Without her, Joel and Ellie wouldn't have made it out of the building in time. She literally states, 'I can buy you some time, but you have to run.' She could have asked Joel to shoot her in the head so she could die without any pain, but she decided to go the heroic route. She chose to die by being viciously gunned down just so Joel and Ellie had enough time to escape. Here's the definition of a heroic death: 'A heroic death typically refers to the act of sacrificing one's life in the pursuit of a noble or virtuous cause, often for the greater good of others or for a higher purpose.' Fits the way Tess went out, doesn't it?
@@TrulyAB Tess was dead anyway. If the soldiers hadn't been there her only option would have been suicide or getting killed by Joel. She made the only practical choice in a shitty situation. She met a shitty end. In this world you have ONE job: Don't get bitten. She did. A truly shitty way to go. But still better than having your skull bashed in by the worlds angriest golfer. I'll agree on that.
@@Dustemikkel_Rev doesn't make her sacrifice any less heroic or impactful. She dies defending her friend with what little life she had. a lot more heroic then anything Abby did.
Not sure where they could go with part 3 but I’d be interested to see where they take things
honestly, the spoilers really actively changed peoples perception of the game, i would argue. my first playthrough was unspoiled and thus the pacing and switching between characters never really felt weird but actually impactful. it was a perfect build up. upon my 2nd playthrough tho, i understood how once you know what to expect, the pacing pulls you out of it a bit.
aside from that, narratively, i really welcomed the game avoiding to people please its fanbase and force you to do the horrible things and face and reflect the ludonarrative within such types of entertainment on a more inyourface-scale. especially for people enjoying or having fun killing virtual entities on a screen like a lawnmover cutting grass ... the way it took you out of such a (what i'd call) gamers obliviousness.. man it worked perfectly for me. especially since i never was a fan of the often brutal nature of SO.GOD.DAMN.MANY. video games. it felt long, seemingly neverending at times. but when it actually did, i was sad, because i could've gone on forever within that world with all its tragedy and drama that ND created for me. like a really good tv show ultimately ending. for what TLOU2 was trying to be, it did that perfectly.
I'm so glad I didn't even knew about the leaks until now, even though I played the game on launch. Joel's death came very unexpected for me
Related to what you say about the fact they should have not do part 2 as it was enough with just part 1, I think you can see part 2 as a part of one’s life that is tough and miserable but necessary. Part 3 would be the redemption that wouldn’t be possible without the story of part 2.
I remember when the release for this game was coming I had no clue there were any leaks I avoided any trailers I knew it was coming but I wanted to go into the game knowing nothing seeing nothing in conclusion yes I think they should make a tlou3 I wanna see Ellie or whoever explore other states or explore either Mexico or Canada to see what those countries look like during the outbreak I mean they’re already filming the tv show in Canada so they could go explore the province of Alberta and bc and Saskatchewan and make a game based in those 3 provinces
I was one of the few who liked the deaths in the game. They were often brutal and without ceremony. I watched playthroughs where players actually grieved. The feeling of "Joel deserved better" was so real for me. That lingering thought we have when we lose someone that stays with us. The people who were angry... Bargaining etc was visceral.
Obviously feeling angry isn't great from an entertaining POV but outside of that, was great
how about the fact is made 0 sense? the devs acted like Joel being completely reasonable and not helping everyone he came across was a bad thing THATS the reason he died and why so many people were angry it wasn't "grief" it was bad writing. The way they always TRIED to make you feel bad to like "play with this dog so you feel bad later" but you dont cause there was no choice and was obviously just emotional manipulation and the "enemy's shout out names so you feel bad" for the people trying to kill me? not to mention all of the walking sections.
its a bad game stop trying to justify it by saying people didn't like it cause it drew out emotion its WHY it drew it out i love sad movies and dramas and such that make me feel WAY sadder so find another strawman this one is very tiring the excuse of "i was making art" is not an excuse tyo make a bad game with bad writing
@@imalittletoxicjustalittle erm...I expressed my opinion and MY perspective. You're actually the one imposing a view with definitives. I'm just expressing mine.
@@imalittletoxicjustalittle I literally started with "I'm one of the few" acknowledging your perspective. But *sigh* fine I'll address your point, even though every fibre of my body is telling me to ignore this.
Joel is a changed guy. He was a hard assed smuggler who had nothing to live for. He then gained a new daughter. He joined a community, the original one he was in he couldn't wait to get out of. Now he has a nice house that's NOT in a QZ. Has a nice coffee cup. A FRAMED picture of Sarah (he couldn't even look at the photo before." People that loved and looked up to him. They state NUMEROUS times during the game that in New Jackson, they take in new people, trade, and don't shoot on sight. Whatever headcanon you have or how much this matters is irrelevant. That 0% you stated is objectively wrong.
You can live up to your name and just argue about why you're right and I'm wrong, or we can actually discuss our different subjective experiences in a productive way. Honestly, I'm Tired, dude. I don't have the energy to deal with a stranger telling me how much my experience pisses them off
Honestly the Pacing, the sense of dread and the emotionally draining aspect was what i loved about it 😂. It felt so real.
I also loved the emotionally draining aspect a lot but the pacing is horrible for me
I did not notice the pacing at all. Completely engrossed.
You haven't been through any harsh realities then. This game is not realistic in its depiction really at all lol
@@theincrediblefella7984 the aspect of life isn't always fair, and stupid things just happen sometimes.
I just needed more joel. He was in there for like 5 minutes
i think at this point they have to do a part 3. yes, part 1 was complete unto itself and i would have been happy to have it end there. but after part 2, i feel like there needs to be a more conclusive ending to the story. part 2 just doesn’t feel like where the story ends. the first game would have been a great ending, but since we are where we are, i feel they need to continue to finally bring it to a close.
I'm a huge last of us and uncharted fan but i really don't like LOU2 i don't hate it but its just not fun to play like the first one
I played all versions on ps3 ps4 and ps5 because its so good! In the second part the story just does not make any sense ellie and joels brother just give up and let abby go?! No! I can't agree with that so the hole adventure was just for nothing! And joel would never just spill the beans about his camp to some strangers and tell who he is. It doesn't make any sense. I'm still waiting for a game just after the break out and before he met ellie with just joel and his brother. To see what awfull things they had to do too survive
I agree that the sequel (Last of Us Part II) was probably unnecessary and the first game was already a perfectly self-contained story that didn't need a sequel... BUT... The sequel that they delivered in the Last of Us Part II is an absolute Masterpiece of storytelling and as a morality tale. It was one of the most powerful stories I've ever experienced in any medium, whether that's books, movies, TV or games. Part II had some serious balls and of course was upsetting, but it was upsetting in the way the "Red Wedding" episode was in Game of Thrones or the finale of Season 4 of Dexter was shocking with the Trinity killer. You're shocked by the story but it hits hard and actually generates emotion in you, instead of always playing it safe like almost all video games. In most games, the protagonist ALWAYS is ok in the end and always wins. And that does make it predictable and kind of boring. But not TLOU II.
Also my artsy interpretation/excuse of the Ellie seeing Joel thing in Seattle was Ellie just initially in her head hoping that the person that was behind her was Joel, like her in her head for a brief second when she turned around she hoped to see it was Joel. I realize it’s a “meh, lame” half ass excuse to make the switch up, like I know it was completely unnecessary for them to do that but that’s just how I took it
Sorry, but that is really dumb, not that you are, just that as a justification, I have yet to find a good one, since that is actually my biggest Issue with this whole game. Pulling a stunt like that, is not something gamers should be okay with, especially not something they then showcase as part of the "Story Trailer" for their game, a month+ before it comes out. If it happened in one of the first Teaster trailers or somthingh, they could use the excuse that "the game changed during development", but not that close to release.
@@chriswihulu I mean I don’t personally think it did any harm to the game I didn’t pay attention to any of the lead up cuz I didn’t want anything spoiled for me but even then it’s so small and minuscule in the broad scope of it that I dont think it really hurts anything about the game except for it ruining your expectations which to me is shoulder shrug cuz expectations are never usually met with video games
@@evansinclair1999 ok, so just because you didn't watch any promotional material, it is ok to showcase scenes, that are supposed to be a proper representation of the story, which are actually fabricated to sell you a lie.
Sorry, but I am likely going to die on this hill, because if we can expect them to lie about the plot of their games, we may as well expect them to lie about anything and everything.
The time frame is especially crucial here and to ignore that, because "expectations are never usually met in video games" is honestly asinine.
Why would we even expect to play as Ellie at all, if we're now supposed to be ok, with them showing false scenes and cutscenes.
Why make any trailer at all, they made a game and that should be enough for you and other potential buyers, to pay for it.
Hell, why should it even be called "The Last of Us part 2", why not "part 6" or "another game" since we can throw away the concept of it being a sequel at all?
If we had to apply this logic, we should see any and all Naughty Dog trailers, with big, bold black on white letters in every frame, saying "every scene being shown, may or may not be an actual representation of the game. What, did you expect to be given anything, that might be an incentive to buy our game? Well, aren't you an idiot!"
I hope, I don't sound like too much of an ass with this, but if this kind of thing became a common practice within gaming, it could be used to outright scam people.
@@chriswihuluno I getcha I don’t think you sound like an asshole I understand the danger of it and I get this kinda marketing tactic could become a bad trend with mainstream games but cmon man it’s naughty dog. Like it’s not like it’s some random developer that you’ve never heard of talking about making a survival horror looter shooter (like something that definitely WAS a scam this last year)
like to me I don’t think a minute long trailer with a swapped character makes naughty dog a dirty lying scamming developer I think they were severely overworked pandemics were fuckin up their plans and then the leaks and piles stress were making them not think things through very well and they didn’t keep their ducks in a row.
But that’s just me coming up with excuses for them for some reason about something really dumb lol like I agree that it was a really weird and dumb thing to do in the marketing but I still thought the game was good and I’m still gonna buy a naughty dog game if I see and hear that it is in fact: a real, complete game lol
@@evansinclair1999 I get where you're coming from, but the fact that Naughty Dog, an industry giant in some eyes, felt justified to do such a thing, actually makes it far, far worse. Because, if they didn't bat an eye at this, what else can they justify in the future? Why should any marketing or promotional item be trusted in the future, when they did this, just to "disprove" the leaks. Sorry, that will never be accepted in my book.
Their reasoning isn't what I focus on, it's their actions and attempt at justifying it afterwards, that kinda overwrites any kind of sympathy I may have had for them. Yes, leaks suck. Yes, stress can pile on. That still doesn't make it right.
And to be honest, I have found people coping in way harder than you, seemingly without even realizing how dumb they sound. Like, take this reply, in reply to another comment, that defends the action:
"because it was additive to the experience of the game. Once I had context and saw why it was advertised the way it was i was completely sold. My expectations were gone and the game showed it was now capable of anything. The traditional story telling rules were out the window. And it was significantly better for it."
Like, that just sounds like "yOu nEeD aN eXtReMeLy hIgH iQ, tO eVeN uNdErStAnD tHe bRiLiAnCe oF tHiS gAmE!i!i!i" to me.
I loved this game. I had never played the first game until after I saw the show. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hate it. I haven’t known and loved the characters for 10 years.
How was it playing the games in reverse ?? I’ve been curious about someone playing in this way due to all the controversy from part 2
@@MR.__G I didn’t play the games in reverse. I played them in order but I had never played either one of them until after I saw the show last year.
@@thejoeschmoshow copy that
Don't defend the game. It was awful. It tried to "subvert" expectations, which really means upsetting the core audience. Abbey's physique is ridiculous for a woman, I am down the gym frequently and none of the women (who are in great shape) who lift are nearly as big. The only reason Ellie is a Lesbian is because it is trendy (it was never was hinted at in the original game, I've recently played it on the PS3).
fucking exactly
They hamfisted it into the DLC, but yes, the original didn't hint it at all.
@@captainbigos9267 Yep. I didn't play the DLC as it was pretty obvious that it was tacked on story and it is a prequel so you already know what happens to the characters. The story was complete at the end of the game
If they wanted to continue the franchise. They should have continued it with completely new characters and maybe they should have had cameos.
It wasn’t "ham-fisted". It was literally a
natural part of her story, just like it would
be if it was a guy instead of Riley or Dina.
Being LGBTQ+ isn’t "trendy."
Also, there are plenty of women in real-life
who are ripped and jacked like Abby.
Just Google them.
@@Infinite_Ethan_03 If this was FB, your comment would deserve a 'laugh emoji reaction'.
I think we got to a point where games are as much art as any other art, so yes, it can be used as just a regular media for entertainment but it has so much potential to share the author's deep thoughts, and feelings the same way a movie or song can, and it doesn't have to be funny and entertaining every time. Not everyone likes deep and complex movies and that's ok. If the game is too heavy or you just want to have fun and don't think about complex stuff, you have the absolute right to don't play and don't like. It's not for you. My opinion: I love the story of this game, to ME ,it makes the audience uncomfortable in a good way, it made me rethink my beliefs and actions in such a deep way. Apart from the story, the gameplay is funny as hell though, the animations, the gunfights, the stealth and the graphics,😙🤌. This game is a masterpiece.
Agree, a game doesn’t have to make you feel good for it to provide a great experience. If your personal preference is a more “happy” experience then great, but that itself is not a good criticism.
I thought they had a genuine point to make and they made it exceedingly well. My only gripe is, not playing as Abby as a concept, but in execution. Having to play through the same days from a different perspective that you had already slogged through (in a good way) as Ellie kind of squashed all of the momentum the story had built up.
It's not my sort of gameplay, so I never completed the first, but I found the story cool, so I watched it on RUclips.
I did the same for part 2. Couldn't have been more disappointed from a story only point of view.
I thought the gameplay elements were amazing, and it has a strong and important message but the pacing is all over the place. It also puts it's message in front of it's characters and that's usually writing 101 for bad story telling. It really is the most polarizing game ever made on every critical and fan level and although and cant say that I liked it, I am still completely in awe of it. For the good and the bad.
@codyd13 sorry, I didn't mean the gameplay was bad, it's just really not my sort of thing. It's a shame the story was so badly put together